I feel hippos is just saying "yep i've spent years accumulating 10K+ posts on this board, so if you havn't dedicated years and years to this board and don't have thousands of posts you don't belong in important threads"

ISH IS A REPULBLIC

There are definately cliques on ish. People might just say "oh, it's the internet, what does it matter, but it DOES matter a little bit." In 2002, there mightve been a serious stimga for those who frequented message boards, but for many, it's a consistent way of communication, much like talking on the phone.

For some people, like myself, I'm in "football country." There are very few people here that are interested in the NBA, and none of my friends could care less. ISH is my outlet for NBA talk, and there are certain people that I trust to impart good knowledge on this forum.

We shouldn't discriminate against newer posters, but we do to an extent. We usually just turn to the sources that we trust. People don't have to do outrageous things to get noticed. Someone signs up today and posts in a respectable manner, they WILL get noticed.